Hospital again

When I came to Hospital to find out if it would be feasible to X-ray our sediment cores, it was just me driving up in a normal car, carrying two core sections in. But when we figured it worked, we have to scale things up. It was decided I would be accompanied by Guy, the lab tech, and that we would use his big fat Landie for transport (it's insured for University use). It went slightly differently.

When we go to hospital I want to leave Menai Bridge at 7:30 AM, so it's necessary to load up the day before. And the day before there was no sign of Guy. And he didn't answer his phone. What to do? I decided to borrow the same university car as the previous time, and load up with his colleague Jess. We added a trolley as well, as these core sections are heavy. It can hold some 8 sections in comfort! And fits in a car. Guy, by the way, did give a sign of life later that day; he was still up for coming with me. And so we went. It was a success.

This time we would just try again. It was all arranged. Until at ~3PM I got a text message from him: he had hurt himself while doing some DIY, and he was out. Shit! By 4PM the porter leaves, and he has all the keys to the school vehicles. I didn't even know if any of them was available. And I was in a meeting when I got the text. I apologised and ran.

There was a car available; the transit van. Well, that will do! And then I ran up to find Jess. Luckily, I bumped into her on the stairs. I summarised the situation by explaining: "help, help!" That worked. She immediately agreed to help me load up the transit, and to come with me the next day. She's a life saver! And as we had the van we brought the big trolley; it could hold all the sections in one go. No need to scamper back for more!

In spite of all this last-minute panicking the actual hospital visit went smoothly. We scanned them ALL! And had 5 minutes to spare. We now have scanned pretty much everything we want to scan. And soon I can do the second batch of cropping and merging! I now now what to do. Bring on the spiffing shells for spiffing radiocarbon dates! And I should buy Guy a few packets of coffee (I enthusiastically help empty the ones he keeps in his office) and Jess a bunch of flowers or something. Life is better with excellent tech support!